: Function ereg() is deprecated in /home/ghostbikes/site/includes/file.inc on line 649.

WNYC Radio

By: Jim O'GradyPublished: Apr, 6 2014

Martha Rothfuss stood in the gloom beneath the elevated tracks
at the corner of 125th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem and
remembered her daughter, Laura. "She always said that her boyfriend was
her bike," Martha Rothfuss recalled. "She rode everywhere."

Laura Rothfuss,
24, was biking through the intersection in June when she was knocked
down by one cab and run over by another. Hers was one of 286 traffic
deaths in the city last year. The site of the collision is now marked by
a white "ghost bike"
that is locked to a pole and adorned by her photo and funereal bouquets
of flowers. About two dozen cyclists rode to the spot on Sunday,
dismounted, and held a brief memorial service that included Laura
Rothfuss' parents, who'd traveled from East Aurora, a town near Buffalo,
to be there.

"At
times, there's a hole in our hearts that feels like it will never
heal," said Rick Rothfuss, Laura's father. "We love her very much and
long to see her every day."

The service was one of several held around the city as four different groups of cyclists and pedestrians made a "9th Annual Memorial Ride"
— pilgrimages to the sites of recent traffic deaths around New York. As
of Sunday, 56 people had died in street collisions since last year.

The group in Harlem then held their bikes up over their heads as a
salute, before heading to another spot, only a block away, where a city
bus struck and killed bicycle deliveryman Pedro Santiago. That collision occurred in January and was one of two bicyclist deaths so far this year in the city.

Cyclists raise their bikes in honor of those who have died in streets collisions. (Jim O'Grady)